Surely You're Joking
by S.S. Reason
Summary: Want to see love blow up in your face' I ask him. 'Just go ask out Lily Evans.'" While James is attempting to win Lily Evans' favour, someone already seems a step ahead of him.


Marauders Era.

Author's Notes: Two-shot. Part one. Enjoy.

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Want to see love blow up in your face? I ask him. Just go ask out Lily Evans.

He gives me this raised eye, almost shocked look, and then growls miserably under his breath, "Prat."

It's what I get for being nice to Severus Snape for once...Okay, so maybe not nice, but civil, we'll go with civil. And all he can do while I'm being civil is whisper insults at me. That's what I get for being James Potter.

What I also get for being James Potter, is detention for a week for throwing Snape into the lake and getting caught by Lily Evans.

I'm cleaning shelf after shelf of trophies with Snape across the room, cleaning more dust away, Muggle style. I bite my lip and pretend I didn't hear him.

Because, here is my new theory: if I'm nice to Snape, well, if I'm civil to Snape, maybe Lily Evans might give me a chance. Maybe then, she won't assign me detention when she catches me feeding Snape to the giant squid.

"So, who do you like?" I ask. At this point, I don't expect an answer.

Complete silence.

"No one, aye?" I turn to look at him. His back is to me, pieces of grass stuck to his cloak from sitting outside reading his books.

"Shut up and clean, before you get us both in trouble," he hisses.

My attention span isn't as great as his I guess. I wonder if Remus has changed into a werewolf already. I wonder if Sirius and Peter and him are off having a great time. Unlike me.

I even wonder what Lily is doing at this moment. Probably sleeping, as it is midnight. Our detention doesn't end till a half hour after twelve. Just a half more hour of this torture.

I turn back to clean. "So someone, who Snape?"

No answer.

"Werewolf got your tongue?"

I don't have to turn around to know he winced at that. Trust me to bring that up again, just when I'm trying to be a nice guy.

"How about this, you tell me and I'll leave you alone for a whole week," I suggest. Tempting, right?

"Bullocks," he sneers under his breath.

"A month?" I offer.

I feel his eyes on me for the first time all night. His eyes always give me the creeps, black, lifeless beetle eyes, that's how Padfoot and I describe them.

"Two months?" he says in a low voice.

I turn around slowly. "You got yourself a deal. Who then?"

His lips curl ever so slightly and then he passes me, heading out the door. And I'm left staring after him.

"Don't walk away!" I call after him. And then it dawns on me...Snape just walked out on detention. "Hey, where are you going?"

He keeps walking.

So what else, but I chase after him. "You are aware that we have detention for another half hour, right?"

Snape doesn't reply, his hair in his face. I swear he's the most anti-social guy I've ever met.

"It's only midnight, Snape," I say, now really confused as he leads me through a maze of doors that I'm recognizing as the path to the Room of Requirement. "Where are you headed?"

We're walking faster, and I'm nearly running to keep up with him.

"Are you meeting someone?"

Snape stops and I crash into him. He doesn't bother to help me up.

"What the hell?" I ask him.

"James Potter!" an angry voice fills the hall. "Why aren't you in detention?"

I turn to see Lily; she's beautiful with her fiery hair up, her green eyes narrowed, and her Head Girl badge fastened perfectly straight on her robes. Her hands reach her hips as she nears us.

"Me? What about him, he has detention too!"

"As a matter of fact, Potter, I don't," Snape sneers. "My detention was over at midnight."

I stare at him. "But he's still wandering the halls after hours!"

Lily turns to him. "As much as I hate to admit this, he's right. What are you doing down here?"

I watch for Snape to ignore her or throw out an insult, but instead, he turns a shade of red I didn't think was possible, and he murmurs, "I was writing that...thing."

"Oh," she says, and her face is tinged in pink.

_What the hell is going on here? What am I missing?_

"Well, I, erm, I know that you want to work on it...But is now really the, erm time?" Lily asked somewhat flustered.

"Working on what?" I ask.

"Nothing, James Potter! Now get back to detention before I have to assign you more," she snaps.

"Sure thing, just one question first," I say quickly.

"The answer is and will always be no," she says before I can ask.

"You haven't even heard the question."

"You were going to ask me out," she says crossly.

"Was not, I was going to ask you if you had a thing for Snape here. But that's a no then?" I turn to him. "Tough luck, mate."

Lily is fuming inside, but she keeps her calm. I smile at her.

"Get back-"

"-Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter, Mr. Snape, is everything alright here?" comes Professor McGonagall's sharp voice.

"Everything is fine here, Professor, I just caught James trying to get out of his detention."

"I was trying to stop Snape from skipping his detention! I didn't know he was off."

"Right," Lily said, rolling her eyes.

"Tell her the truth!" I demand of Snape.

He just stares at Lily in silence.

"Professor! Don't assign me more detention. I think this week does suffice for punishment."

"Hardly," Lily countered.

"Oh, what do you know miss?" I say, watching her closely. "One who's never been punished in her life." I raise an eye and whisper under my breath. "I can change that you know."

_"Stupefy_!" Snape hits me with a curse and he's tackling my limp body.

"Mr. Snape! Lily, separate them immediately," McGonagall says, rushing over.

Lily pulls back Snape, and releases me from the spell. "You deserved that."

"Yeah, well, you deserve this," I say, and I tackle her and throw my arms around her waist and arms. She struggles against me.

"Get off, get off!"

"Enough!" McGonagall shouts.

I let Lily go, Snape backs off as if he was about to jump me from behind.

"All of you to bed immediately. It seems that more detention is in order for you Mr. Potter," McGonagall says sternly. "Now off you go!"

I stood for a moment, almost ready to press my luck, but the furious look on McGonagall's face beat me into submission. I start back towards Gryffindor Tower, up flights of stairs, disgruntled and with no intention in staying in bed once I get there. The firm vision of my invisibility cloak hidden safely in my trunk was vivid in my mind and I can't wait to slip underneath it.

As I climb another flight of stairs my thoughts turn to the scene I had just left. Snape…Interested in Evans? No way, that was just bloody weird. Weird because Snape was a git who had to be an a-sexual, without a doubt. It was disgusting to think about, Snape touching anyone let alone the beautifully cold Lily Evans. What had that letter been about?

I reach the fat lady portrait abruptly and take off the cloak and say to her, "_Peanut Brittle._" The woman opens her eyes and groggily she murmurs something about me being inconsiderate. She opens the portrait for me.

As silently as possible I make my way through four-poster beds, being sure not to wake anyone. I lift the lid of my trunk and uncover my most treasured possession. With a grin, I slid underneath it, disappearing from sight, feeling the cool cloth against my skin. With less care I snap my trunk shut and head out, my footsteps almost so obnoxiously loud that I was sure to have woken a few of the lighter sleepers. I chuckle to myself at my deed and leave the room.

It is often harder to walk under the concealment of the cloak, particularly with all of us who need to use it, Pettigrew makes it ever more difficult with his size. That's why when they leave, we do so straight from the castle after dinner and cloak ourselves in our animal form to be safe from detection for the rest of the evening.

I wish that I had the map as I started for my destination, but I know Sirius has already taken it for the evening. So, I will have to hope that Snape has been the little goody and gone to bed instead of the Room of Requirement, though I doubt it.

I reach it with no trouble and as I am already thinking about exactly what I want, a door is wait for me. A door with incredible ease to slid in an out of unnoticeably if someone so happened to be inside. Which there is.

There he is, hunching over a desk, his crooked nose leering over parchment and surely smearing it with grease every time it hits. I wonder how he had gotten safely here without McGonagall realizing what he was doing, after all, this was quite in the opposite direction of the dungeons.

I stalk over, moving as silent as the still air in the room and stand over his shoulder to read what must be a pathetic love note, I am sure of it.

_Dearest Lily_

I stop on this line, jaw dropped, though I had expected it, but only from earlier…but the word 'dearest'? Surely Snape couldn't be humanly capable of saying these words, let alone monstrously capable.

I start over again, in hope to rectify what my eyes thought they saw, it didn't.

_Dearest Lily, _

_I didn't know who to sit down to write too, or how to write the words for the longest time. I know I said that I would write it to the person that it needed to be written to the most, you assumed it would be the one closest to Him, the one to tell Him I'm out and through. But after hours of racking my brain in vain I could only figure that the one that needs to be written to the most, was you. You won't let me say my feelings aloud, you refuse to hear them until I have been wrought of 'them'. And I will be. For you Lily, I would do anything. But until you know how I feel, and until I know that you can feel the same way, I am incapable of thinking or doing anything that doesn't involve you._

_Here is my heart, and my battered soul, yours for the taking, Lily Evans._

_I love you. With every ounce of me, I love you. My breath, my heartbeat, it is all and only forever for you. I live for your smiles; for the hours we spend together doing all the things we do. I live for your laughter and for your beauty. But most of all, I live for the hope of your love in return. _

_I yearn for your touch upon me. For us to disappear in blissfully ecstasy. For your lips and body to meld within mine. You are the only one I ever want. You amaze me, everything you do. And you are beautiful. I watch you for hours from afar, just because in this world, you are all that I can see. I can trace every curve your body makes with my eyes. I know you inside and out. But this is not enough. Can't you feel it too? I know you feel something, the way your lips had met mine on that Christmas evening just after sunset. How the sun seemed to set with our kiss. You felt like you belonged to me, were made to be with me. _

_Please tell me that I am not wrong. You are everything to me. I can't stand to go on living this far apart from you when you are always so near. Please, my love, tell me that you love me too._

_Love, always,_

_Severus. _


End file.
